...if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal." JFK

Saturday, August 22, 2009

London Ruby Call is a little girl in Saranac Lake that was born blind and has dibetes insipidus. There seems to be little that the health care system in the USA can or will do for her. She has been accepted for a umbilical stem-cell transplant procedure in China. I imagine this procedure is considered "experimental" by insurance companies, so there would be no help there. London's family needs to raise just $8500 more to take her to China. The family is having a garage sale today and tommorrow in SL. But donations for London can be sent to:

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

"Imagine a petitioner in Davis's situation who possesses new evidence conclusively and definitively proving, beyond any scintilla of doubt, that he is an innocent man," Stevens wrote. "The dissent's reasoning would allow such a petitioner to be put to death nonetheless. The court correctly refuses to endorse such reasoning."

We are really getting sick of these "activists" judges. What do Justice Scalia and Thomas say?

"This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent," Scalia wrote. "Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved."

Now this is common sense conservatism! You've been found guilty and you've been sentenced to death. Now, even though you can prove you are innocent, beyond a reasonable doubt.....sorry, it's too late and too much trouble to give you another day in court.

Luckly, reason prevailed and the man is going to get his day in court.

My friend Brian, at "Musings of a (Fairly) Young Contrarian" seems to be angry about one of my posts. See, Brian doesn't like Democrats. For that matter he doesn't like Republicans either. Brian belongs to the Green Party, so he is in the enviable position of being able to criticize everyone. Brian doesn't like the Democratic party because it isn't enough like the Republican party. The Republicans have insured that no one but the looniest of the right-wing is welcome to join the party. The last national election resulted in the defeat of the last centrist Republicans.

Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress in the last national election. One reason this happened is because conservative Democrats are still welcome in the Democratic Party. I don't care for these "blue dogs", but I'd rather have them voting most of the time with Democrats than with Republicans.

Brian wants liberals to hold other Democrats to the same standard that we hold Republicans. I think we will. The only effective way that can be done is during elections. For example, there is a Democrat running against Arlen Specter in PA. Howard Dean has said there will be primaries for democrats that vote against a public option. Unfortunately, elections involve the casting of votes by American citizens, something called democracy. These citizens vote for whom they think best represents them.

I've asked Brian to give me the secret plans of how the Green Party is going to gain control of our government (and believe it would be great if they did). But, here is one bit of advice. The Green Party will never be in power in the USA for one important reason. There are Green Parties in Canada, Belgium, Germany and other countries around the world. This smacks of the great "new world order" conspiracy. They just have to change the name of the party. Personally, I'm betting that the Illuminati are behind the Green Party and I've always wanted to get "in" with the Illuminati.

We finally have a local example showing how health insurance company "death panels" work.

Gordon Hazel, of Plattsburgh, NY has been sentenced to death by his health insurance company. Mr. Hazel has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. While the prognosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer is not good, Mr. Hazel points out that the treatments he has been receiving from Cancer Treatment Centers of America have been working for him. He has thus far lived 2 years longer than either his doctors or the insurance company predicted.

No matter, enough is enough says Mr. Hazel's insurance company.

"(The insurance company) sent me a letter that said they were going to stop paying for those treatments because there was nothing to prove that those treatments were safe, effective or contributed to my quality of life," Hazel said.

Forget about the so-called "death panels" in the health care reform bill. We already have death panels and they are called health insurance companies.